Introducing frameworks and methodologies

There are many frameworks, standards, and architecture tools in the IT industry. Frameworks are essentially a set of best practices that should be inspirational for an enterprise's users. They differ from standards in that they are not prescriptive. Conversely, standards are prescriptive, in that you must adhere to all their rules to get certified. The following screenshot shows some of the recurring frameworks, standards, and tools, as per the architecture discipline:

Figure 2.1 – Frameworks and tools

Starting from the left, we have the EA practice, which is mostly conducted using TOGAF and the ArchiMate modeling language. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is a widespread tool suite that helps you build both ArchiMate viewpoints and Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams. ArchiMate is used to draw high-level types of viewpoints, while UML can be used to draw both high- and low-level types of views. If...